Just wanted to share some stage combat weapons i've finished recently. They are built with Tinker/Hanwei blunt blades with reshaped tips and rounded edges (the blades come with a square edge, but a rounded one is less likely to nick or chip in blade-on-blade action).
Some of the hilt furniture is mine, and a few pieces are from the recent Albion Moat sale or Valentine Armory. Its a grab bag, but with a lot of hand work they go together nicely. They are all dismountable and are held together with recessed allen nuts.
The wider blades come un-threaded, and i thread them at 1/4"-28, but for the more tapered blades i had to buy some 6mm "Inside Nuts" from a fencing supplier. Despite information to the contrary, the threaded tinker blunts are a 6mm metric thread, which in the case of allen nuts take a 5mm allen wrench. Took me a while to figure that out, but there you go.
I'm putting them up on my site if anyone wants to buy one, otherwise i hope to take them to the National Stage Combat Workshop later in the summer and unload them there.....

Thank you Michael, i'm glad you like them. Two of them are mounted with the Viking Blunts, and the other two are the single-handed medieval blunts. I've reshaped the tips on all of them to give them that "dangerous" look you need for the stage....
I haven't had a chance to really put them through their paces and see how the edges hold up to stage combat, but i look forward to trying them out. They are certainly lighter and more nimble than most blades made for theater work.

I expect the Vikings might hold up better than the medievals; the medievals were made for I.33 fencing which is much less demanding of the edge than typical stage use. Typically I have found stage fighters are much, much harder on blades than martial artists though there have been exceptions. A local theatrical group buys the sharps and has me de-edge them but they don't use the SAFD system and are frankly a lot better trained than most stage combatants since they are specialists.Michael 'Tinker' Pearce
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Then one night, as my car was going backwards through a cornfield at 90mph, I had an epiphany...

Yeah, SAFD technique is all edge-to-edge contact, and although in theory the cut is being cast "past" the target, there are a lot of unskilled practitioners who can't make that happen. However, the better balanced the blade, the easier that technique becomes. I do think rounding the edge makes quite a bit of difference in terms of chipping and nicking. I thought about blunting your sharps, but i was worried there wouldn't be enough material behind the edge. I have a viking sharp blade, and of course it has a much thinner edge profile. Can you tell me the name of the group using the de-edged sharps? I'd love to talk to them about how the blades are holding up to their work......

Sure- it's the Seattle Knights. Yes, they are quite thin at the edges if you merely de-sharpen them and rounding the edges on the blunts helps a great deal.Michael 'Tinker' Pearce
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Then one night, as my car was going backwards through a cornfield at 90mph, I had an epiphany...

Just finished two more weapons......these are mounted with Tinker/Hanwei Bastard Sword Blunt blades. They were much narrower than i expected them to be and so i changed my plans. I turned one into a beefy cut and thrust blade for a long-unfinished rapier project, and the other i mounted with an Albion guard and a long grip. Its still several inches shorter than the Tinker Blunt, but plenty long for my purposes. The rapier is still a bit blade heavy, unsurprisingly. Not unrealistic, just not as nimble as i like for stage work. I ground out a fat ricasso and left the rest of the blade alone.Attachment: 180.83 KBAttachment: 183.96 KBAttachment: 207.79 KBAttachment: 117.46 KBAttachment: 140.72 KBAttachment: 164.77 KBAttachment: 178.95 KBAttachment: 193.89 KB

Nice swords! I myself am currently working on a project using a blunt bastard sword blade. Want to make a longsword for reenactment events that will be used most of the time one-handed (with a shield). Want to be different from others who use single-handed swords. These blades seem to be pretty versatile. Long enough to be used two-handed, yet light and well-balanced enough to be wielded in one hand. Your rapier made me want to make one as well. Damn, why do shipping to Europe and taxes almost double the price?! I definitely need to find a better paid job!

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